TIMOTHY KELLER’S “KING’S CROSS: The story of the World in the Life of Jesus.”
Our church library has a shelf of freebies, books donated which they don’t need. Yesterday I picked this one up and am loving it. Keller is focusing on the life of Jesus from the Gospel According to Mark.
Consider this paragraph from the opening…
Who was Mark? The earliest and most important source of an answer comes from Papias, bishop of Hierapolis until 130 A.D., who said that Mark had been a secretary and translator for Peter….and “wrote accurately all that (Peter) remembered.” This testimony is of particular significance, since there is evidence that Papias (who lived from 60-135 A.D.) knew John, another of Jesus’s first and closest disciples, personally. …Mark mentions Peter more than the other Gospels. If you go through the book of Mark, you’ll see that nothing happens in which Peter is not present. The entire Gospel of Mark, then, is almost certainly the eyewitness of Peter.
Keller says the other religions of the world give advice; Christianity has “news.” They all tell what you have to do; Christianity tells us what God has done.
HUMBLE INFLUENCE: The Strength of True Followership by Jim Matuga
At the bottom of the cover page is this line: Master the Skills to Support, Elevate, and Empower Your Leader.
I came by this book as a result of an email asking me to read it and possibly recommend it. I read most of it and definitely recommend it. The underlying premise of Matuga’s book is “he who would be great among you, let him be your servant,” a statement from our Lord. We are reminded of Joshua, the understudy for Moses all those four decades of wilderness wanderings, who then stepped into his shoes to lead Israel into the Promised Land. He was a faithful follower who was ready.
Matuga is a seasoned veteran of working with businesses and organizations. His company is called InterAction Media, based in West Virginia. Here is a story from him:
During the 1960’s, as NASA was immersed in its ambitious mission to land a man on the moon, President John F. Kennedy visited the space agency to see the work in progress. While touring the facility, he came across a janitor mopping the floor. Curious, Kennedy stopped and asked the man what he did at NASA. Without hesitation, the janitor looked up and replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
At first glance, the janitor’s job might seem inconsequential compared to the engineers designing rockets or the astronauts preparing for space travel. Yet, his response captured the essence of followership and the profound value of every role within an organization.
CONFRONTING EVIL: Assessing the Worst of the Worst by Bill O’Reilly and Josh Hammer.
This is a fascinating book. O’Reilly has chapters on Caligula, Genghis Khan, King Henry VIII, the slavers off the coast of New Orleans, Nathan Bedford Forrest and the KKK, the Robber Barons, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Ayatollah Khomeini, Putin, and the Drug Cartels.
Under Caligula, Rome has one million citizens. And get this: eighty percent live in abject poverty. “The poorest citizens huddle in tenement apartments constructed of hay, water, mud, and wood. The roofs are lined with straw to deflect the scorching summer sun. Wintertime temperatures frequently plummet to freezing. To survive, the poor burn animal dung in small furnaces. The smoke is toxic, leading to citywide cases of asthma.
Who would want to live in Rome? Carcasses of dead animals line the streets. Slavery is a big part of Roman society. Twenty-five percent of the population is enslaved.
Caligula aside, just to live in such surroundings is evil aplenty. As for him, it appears he had a stroke (some say he was poisoned) at some point and basically went crazy thereafter. The man slaughtered family members, advisors, senators, neighbors, servants, you name it. Eventually, his own bodyguard killed him.
And then we get to Genghis Khan. Fifty million people were slaughtered by him and his decrees. He controlled much of Asia and central Europe.
I cannot say I enjoy reading about such evil–and I’m only into the third chapter–but I’m in search of some insight into evil from these two authors. Stay tuned.
THE GLORY OF GOD’S WILL by Elisabeth Elliot.
This is a booklet, reprinting a message from Mrs. Elliot I first read half a lifetime ago when she delivered this talk before the Inter-Varsity Student Missionary Convention, held in Urbana, Illinois, in December of 1976. It was stunning. So, six years later, Good News Publishers of Westchester, IL reprinted it as a booklet. It’s so well worth purchasing and reading, again and again.
The opening scene is unforgettable.
High in the mountains of North Wales in a place called Llanymawddwy lives a shepherd named John Jones with his wife Mari and his black and white dog Mack. I stood one misty summer morning in the window of the farmhouse watching John on horseback herding the sheep with Mack. A few cows were quietly chewing their cud in a nearby corner while perhaps a hundred sheep moved across the dewy meadow toward the pens where they were to be dipped. Mack, a champion Scottish collie, was in his glory. He came from a lone line of working dogs, and he had sheep in his blood. This was what he was made for, this was what he had been trained to do, and it was a marvelous thing to see him circling to the right, circling to the left, barking, crouching, racing along, herding a stray sheep here, nipping at a stubborn one there, his eyes always glued to the sheep, his ears listening for the tiny metal whistle from his master which I couldn’t hear.
Mari took me to the pens to watch what John had to do there. When all the animals had been shut inside the gates, Mack tore around the outside of the pens and took up his position at the dipping trough, frantic with expectation, waiting for the chance to leap into action again. One by one John seized the rams by their curled horns and flung them into the antiseptic. They would struggle to climb out the side, and Mack would snarl and snap at their faces to force them back in. Just as they were about to climb up the ramp at the far end, John caught them by the horns with a wooden implement, spun them around, forced them under again, and held them–ears, eyes, and nose submerged for a few seconds. I’ve had some experiences in my life which have made me feel very sympathetic to those poor rams–I couldn’t figure out any reason for the treatment I was getting from the Shepherd I trusted. And He didn’t give me a hint of explanation….
Mack was in his glory, doing the very thing for which he had been born and trained. Mrs. Elliot says, In that Welsh pasture in the cool of that summer morning, I saw two creatures who were in the fullest sense ‘in their glory:’ a man who had given his life to sheep, who loved them and loved his dog, and a dog whose trust in that man was absolute, whose obedience was instant and unconditional, and whose very meat and drink was to do the will of his master. ‘I delight to do thy will,’ was what Mack said. ‘Yea, thy law is within my heart.’
I hope you can find a copy of the booklet.
And finally…
1944: FDR AND THE YEAR THAT CHANGED AMERICA by Jay Winik.
I have books titled 1939, 1940, 1941, and now this one, 1944. The authors claim that the year in question “changed the world.” And they would be right. In some respects, I imagine we could say that about every year. Things changed, new people arrive on the scene, new inventions transform the culture.
One reviewer said this about the book.
Posing as a book on President Roosevelt in 1944, this extraordinary book is in fact a compelling, comprehensive history of the Second World War told from FDR’s point of view, certainly, but also featuring profound insights into Churchill, Hitler, the ordinary soldiers and civilians, and the monstrous suffering of Europe’s Jews. The width of the canvas is astonishing. 1944 might have been, as Winik calls it, ‘the year that changed history,’ but 1944 is a book that will change history writing.